Familia Supra Omnia
by mosomacilany
Summary: The family above everything. What a father can do when his beloved son is off the fated path? When does he cross the line? Written for the Dragon Age Fanfiction Writers Monthly Minor Character-Writing Challenge.


**Familia Supra Omnia**

Halward Pavus was always sensitive to the good reputation of the family. The House Pavus was one of the most prestigious and influential family of Tevinter. And every member of it had to live up to it to fulfill the great ambition. That one day a Pavus will sit on the throne of the Archon. And he almost reached this ambition with his son.

 _Familia supra omnia._ The family above everything. The words of their House, which adorned their crest. The words to what every Pavus had to live for.

He was raised in this atmosphere. He had a destiny, what his father and grandfather and great-grandfather and their ancestors carved for him. And this was granite hard. For centuries they carefully chose their wives and husbands to ensure the best breed for the next generation of mages, to gain the more political power to possess the most respected name in Tevinter.

Halward Pavus was a good son, a good man. Did what he must do, never revolted, never questioned why, just did. He finished his studies with excellent scores, he married the suitable wife from the suitable family, he ensured the line of succession with a boy and when the time came he sat on father's seat in the Magisterium. He did what they expected from him, never desiring more than what he had.

For an outsider he had everything. He was rich and powerful, has name in the elite society, has a beautiful wife. But everything was a lie, a pretense for the outside world. He wife was a drunken trollop and he was the puppet of his ancestors, living up for the words on the crest.

He had only one thing. A son. A son who once trusted and respected him. A son who he betrayed in the name of the greater good.

* * *

And now as he tried to collect his thoughts for the thousandth times as his carriage was passing the bumpy road to Redcliffe. The icy wind from the mountains whizzed through the opened windows and he drew the fur coat closer in himself. Ferelden was an inhospitable place and he wondered that the weather is always so moist and rough. They always despised the South. Tevinter was the cradle of the civilization why here everything was based on an Andrastrian superstition. And he drew his son to this muddy place to the arms of the Inquisition.

 _Why he has to be so stubborn. Why did he never understand?_ He always asked from himself as watched the grey winter landscape.

He was the head of the family. He had to preserve the good reputation. He had to ensure the legacy of his ancestors. But Dorian never cared. He has always been unruly. Maybe because he could never show his love properly. Maybe because he treated his son as his father treated him. Nothing was good enough. A Pavus always had to be better than the best. He always fought for his father appreciation and even on his deathbed he never acknowledged anything.

Showing any kind of love is the privilege of the lower classes. For the aristocracy a marriage was a contract and the child is the cover. He treated Dorian as his parents treated him, because he never knew how to love differently. And this wasn't enough for his son. The life, the well-being, the power and wealth wasn't enough for Dorian. But he had nothing else to offer.

* * *

 _He left no other choice._ He tried to convince himself as he got out the carriage and entered the shabby inn they were supposed to meet.

He did not have, indeed. Dorian didn't listen. He was stubborn and he endangered everything what they built up during the centuries. He could have ruined the mighty dynasty of mages, the respected members of the Magisterium.

Halward firstly tried to appeal on his senses, tried to remind him what his duty is. But like he was deaf continued his deviant behavior, drank himself into unconsciousness, slept with well-known male prostitutes, made himself and the family a target of malicious gossips.

And then he fell in love and refused to marry the girl he was supposed to, spitting to his father that for once in a lifetime he found somebody who really loved him.

A prostitute, an outcast, a MAN.

And Halward knew what he had to do to avoid the scandal, to preserve the good reputation of the family. Familia supra omnia, the family above everything, even their own happiness. That was the only truth he has ever known, the truth what Dorian had to understand.

* * *

"I only wanted what was the best for you." he said to his son. _What was the best for the family._ But what was best for the family was the best for every Pavus. He did what he had to.

"You wanted the best for you. Your fucking legacy. Anything for that." Dorian spitted in his face. "Familia supra omnia. No Pavus can live otherwise. Everybody have to live up to this sacred goal or have to perish." The anger and hate in his eyes, the disdain in his voice, the uptight strides he stomped up and down in the inn. He really hated his father and everything he represented. He lost his son. Not his legacy, not the future of the House Pavus, his son.

"HE told me that blood magic is the resort of a weak man." Dorian leaned on a table, starring the candle and tried to not shed those tears in his eyes. At least they were common in one thing. Pride. "Once I had a father who would have known that. A father whom I looked up to." he said lastly as headed to the exit.

"Once, I had a son who trusted me. A trust I betrayed." Halward said not waiting any respond, he just needed to tell what his father never told to him. But Dorian turned to him. "I only wanted to hear your voice again and ask him to forgive me."

"Bullshit." he yelled. "The only thing you have ever regretted that you couldn't form me to be suitable. That I could never be a model child what you could show around Qarinus."

"Dorian..." he tried to cut him.

"I was a failure. The first Pavus who couldn't live up to those impossible standards. A faggot. An inconvenience." His voice trembled in fury and bitterness. The Inquisitor took his hand on his shoulder to calm him but he angrily pulled it away.

Halward resignedly dropped his head. "I'm sorry you see this way."" There was nothing else to say. If his son was not dead in his eyes than he was in Dorian's.

"Me too." he said and stormed out from the inn. The Inquisitor lingered a bit, unsure what to say but eventually he just went after his son.

Halward stood a bit in the middle of the empty inn, listened the screaming silence. He waited for something, maybe for a miracle that Dorian changes his mind and understands.

 _Familia supra omnia._ That is what they carve on the grave of all Pavus.


End file.
